by Tracy Sharp
“What are you doing, Jess?” I smiled.
“Heah dem?” She’d whispered.
“Hear who, sweety?” I laid down next to her and pressed my ear to the grass. I didn’t hear anything, except the noise of the street: birds, cars, people talking.
“Someone down dere.” Her face was full of concentration.
I thought she was playing a game. Or that her imagination had run wild. Or that she was hearing a mole moving around in the ground. Lord knew there were holes everywhere in that back yard. All kinds of animals made the ground their home: moles, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks. But it wasn’t animals that she had been hearing that day. She’d been hearing the reptiles, preparing their takeover.
So if I got brave enough to climb down from the tree and jump the ten feet or so down from the lowest branch, chances were that they’d come running.
Or slithering. Like reptiles do.
That was if the dead didn’t get to me first.
You are screwed.
No. No you are not. You didn’t survive an almost gang rape to die like that. Hells, no. So get a grip. You are not giving up.
I wouldn’t have a choice if I didn’t figure out a way to get out of the tree and into one of the houses, and get warm.
The screams had stopped. Except for the grunts and moans of the dead, there was no sound. I opened my eyes and squinted as I gazed around at the houses and the yards. The doors of every house within my sights had been left open by the lizards. In the gauzy light of dawn, I could see the dead shuffling around in yards, on porches, and through the windows of the houses. They were like scavengers, looking around to see if anything had been left.
The clean-up crew.
Get moving.
There was a tall wooden fence between this yard and the next door neighbor’s. I climbed down onto the lower branches of the spruce, then shimmied across, as close to the thinning end as I dared, feeling it bend with my weight. I used gravity to allow the branch to lower me down toward the fence.
My fingers were so cold I wondered if I might lose some or all of them. I used my arms as much as I could, because my fingers were so numb.
My boots found the fence, and I carefully climbed down onto it, using my arms, hooking them around the wooden boards. Thankfully, they weren’t picketed --- just boards cut straight across. That meant I wouldn’t impale myself as a result of my numb and almost useless hands. It was amazing how happy, in a life and death crisis, a person could be for small things that helped him or her to survive.
Carefully hooking my arms over the wood, I climbed over the fence and let myself hang for a moment, preparing my feet for the shock of dropping down if I slipped. Then I’d use the toes of my boots to slide down as best I could, making as minimal an impact on the ground as possible.
The snow would help cushion the impact, but I didn’t know how good the reptiles’ hearing was. Or maybe they sensed vibrations. Fear paralyzed me for a long moment, and I hung, the toes of my boots resting on a cross board about two feet from the bottom of the fence.
Keep moving. You’re almost there.
There was no helping the muted thud my boots caused on the crunchy snow as I landed. I hoped the shuffling of the dead helped obscure the sound. It was a small stroke of luck that the fence surrounding the back yard of this house was built to keep their dog in the yard, and it also kept the dead out. The dog, a Boxer crossed with some other mastiff type dog, trotted nervously around the yard. When it spotted me, its’ ears lifted and a quizzical look came across its face. There was a jagged cut across its back, glistening with fresh blood. A war wound from trying to defend his people, no doubt.
He stood watching me, body and head alert, but seemed to know that I wasn’t a threat.
Maybe it had been all the Cheetos I’d tossed over the fence for him when Jessie and I had been out here playing.
Moving as lightly on my feet as I could, I winced as the snow broke and crunched beneath my boots. The dog ran over to me, tail wagging, clearly happy that I was no longer alone. I shared the feeling.
“Come on, boy.” With trembling, numb hands, I patted him on his blocky head and he followed me to the house. The sliding glass door left open by the reptiles after dragging Mr. and Mrs. Doriga away, kicking and screaming across the snow and into the trees.
They had a teenage daughter, Luka, who was just fifteen years old. I shuddered as I thought of what had happened to her. I didn’t remember seeing her being dragged away. But that didn’t mean that she was safe. I’d been busy fighting for my life while others on the street had lost theirs.
Keep moving.
I left the sliding door open, in case I had to get out fast. If the house was empty, I’d come back and close it. The back yard was clear of the dead, so it was safe for the moment.
Right now I needed shelter; a place to think for a little while. I had to assess the situation, map out a plan, and figure out how to get through this.
The dog stayed close at my heels, and followed me up the stairs. There was a closed door at the top. I pressed my ear to the cool wood, listening for any movement.
The dog lifted his ears, doing the same.
“Do you hear anything?” I asked him. I figured if he did hear something, he’d be a good warning indicator.
He stared at the door, ears twitching, but didn’t make any signal that there was anyone in the house.
This dog wasn’t a barker. The only time I’d heard him bark was when his people had been dragged away. I’d squeezed my eyes shut at the time, trying to block out their screams.
The dog wouldn’t draw the attention of the dead, or the lizards.
Slowly, I turned the knob. “Stay close, buddy.”
I stepped into a kitchen, standing still, looking around and listening. There was a door off the kitchen left open, and freezing air swirled around the kitchen, lifting the edges of photos and post-it notes on the fridge door. Why were there no dead in here? Or had they moved to another room in the house?
Slowly, I moved to the door, peeking around it to the stairs and yard outside.
I had my answer.
A wheelchair lay tipped over in the yard, and several of the dead were busy tearing into the old man who had been apparently either trying to get away from the house or into it. There lay a walker a few feet away, and the old lady who had used it next to it. She was also being eaten.
The grandparents. I’d seen them making their slow way to and from the Dorigas’ Honda Pilot before.
The dead were busy now, but they wouldn’t be forever.
I quietly pulled the door shut and locked it.
There was no movement. I knew there had to be an open door somewhere, where the dead had come in.
Moving carefully I started checking the rest of the house. I went room by room, looking for any dead that might’ve made their way in. They were quiet, which made them lethal if you weren’t careful. They may not be fast, but they were stealthy.
The dog stayed right beside me, and I was thankful for his company. I didn’t feel so alone, now. He didn’t seem to want to move far without me, either. I couldn’t blame him.
When we’d checked the entire house for the dead and found it clear, I let out a deep breath.
“I think we’re safe for now, bud.” I patted the dog’s head. My horror-addled mind tried to remember his name but came up with nothing.
Kneeling down, I rubbed my hands over his head, then looked at the tags on his collar.
The name on the tag was Hank. “Hank,” I said. His ears lifted and his tail thudded against the floor. Then I remembered Mrs. Doriga calling for him. I’d thought she was calling Tank. That name would’ve suited him fine, as big as he was.
“Pleased to meet you.” I kept my voice low. “We’re in trouble here. I guess you already know that.”
Hank licked my face. The gash on his back looked ugly, but I didn’t think it was too bad.
I found the bathroom down a hallway off the living
room. There was some antiseptic spray and some antibiotic ointment in the cabinet. Hank was close on my heels. I bent down, sprayed the antiseptic onto his long gash. The spray was supposed to be numbing, so I hoped it helped his pain. I then squeezed ointment all along the wound.
He whimpered lightly, but didn’t move.
I patted him on the head. “Good boy. You’re so brave.”
Taking the medicine with me, I looked around the house. In the teenager’s room, I found a canvas backpack. I dumped it onto her bed and stuffed the medicine into it.
I looked through her clothes and found a pair of yoga pants that would fit me. In her closet I found a ski jacket and black windbreaker pants. They had an elastic waist, so they fit me okay, if a little big. The girl was a skier. Lucky for me.
Scanning the room, my gaze stopped on a cork board covered in pictures. The girl, small and blonde, smiled into the camera in every photo. I’d seen her coming and going, but had never spoken to her. There were many selfies with friends. She seemed like a popular, happy girl. A birthday card hung on a push pin. I lifted a corner with a finger and read the short blurb handwritten in loopy script.
To my best friend in the world. Hope your year is full of love, friends, and laughter.
Lots of love, Taylor.
I wondered if Taylor had escaped the reptiles and the dead.
Maybe Luka had, too.
I blinked back tears and swallowed down a lump in my throat.
It was time to pack up. This house wouldn’t be safe for long.
I packed the backpack with the bare minimum of what I’d need if I had to take off fast.
Back in the bathroom I threw ibuprofen and bandages into the back pack.
In the kitchen I found Hank’s food and filled two freezer bags full. Again, he looked at me quizzically.
“Well, you’re coming with me, aren’t you?”
His tail wagged at the tone of my voice. He understood that we’d be going somewhere, and he was apparently all for not being left alone to starve.
“Are you hungry?”
His tail thumped the floor and he stood up. He walked toward the kitchen, throwing me a look that said, “Well? What are you waiting for?”
My entire body ached as I stood, and I looked through the slats in the vertical blinds before heading into the kitchen. The backyard was quiet, and flooded with bright sunshine. The snow glinted in the light, looking like diamond chips.
The fence was too tall for me to see into our back yard, but I knew the dead were walking around out there. The lizards seemed to be gone for now. But there was no way to be sure.
Hank came up beside me and placed his head beneath my hand. “I’m sorry, buddy. Just assessing the situation out there. Looks quiet for now.”
We went into the kitchen and I poured Hank a full bowl of food. His water bowl was being fed by a gallon bottle turned upside down into his dish, so that would be fine for a while. While Hank ate, I lifted a corner of the curtain covering the window in the kitchen door. I peeked outside. There were several dead still eating the old lady and old man, but many of them had left the streets to search in the houses.
There were no lizards moving around the streets.
“I think the lizards are nocturnal, Hank.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to draw the attention of the dead in the front yard.
Hank lifted his head and looked at me, still chewing his kibble.
“I don’t think they like the daylight.”
He walked over and sat next to me. I sat on the kitchen floor, leaning my back against the cupboards, and he lay down next to me.
“But they may be back tonight, to do another sweep. See what they can find.” My chest tightened at the thought, and my breath quickened. If I wasn’t careful, I’d go into a full panic. It would be easy to just lose it. Scream hysterically. I felt like my sanity was slipping. Was I the only person left in the world? Had everyone been eaten? Or were there others, hiding away, like me?
“If we’re careful, we can move around in the day time. But you need to stay right with me, Hank. It’s way too dangerous to go around joy sniffing. You know?”
Hank did know. I could feel it in the bunched muscles beneath his fur. In the way he pushed right up against me.
“We’ll be okay if we’re careful. We won’t let them get us.”
We sat on the cold linoleum and I began to try to form some kind of plan to keep us alive.
* * *
We sat like that for a long time. The cold and the shock of what was happening had settled deep into my muscles and bones. I felt sluggish and so tired. Like I could sleep for an entire year.
But I knew that if I didn’t get moving, Hank and I would both end up dead, one way or the other. The lizards apparently weren’t interested in Hank, but the dead would be. They didn’t seem to be really picky about what they ate.
My stomach felt hungry and queasy at the same time, and I felt weak. Being outside in the cold, hanging onto a tree branch for hours had given me a case of the shivers that wouldn’t go away.
Looking up at the cupboards, I tried to get up the gumption to push myself up. Maybe if I ate something, I’d start to feel warm again.
I scanned cupboards and found some peanut butter and a lot of other things to eat. Crackers, cookies, dried fruit, and granola bars. There were cans of soup and stew. In the fridge I found bread and an assortment of lunch meats, cheeses and vegetables. I slapped a peanut butter sandwich together and began choking it down. Before leaving, I’d make another sandwich and maybe put some string cheese, granola bars and dried fruit into a freezer bag in case we didn’t make it back here. I found some bottled water and put a few bottles into my backpack. Some dog biscuits went in there, too.
Not knowing what the world beyond this street was like terrified me. I forced myself to breathe, because I kept catching myself holding my breath. The fear of the reptiles coming back for me or the dead finding a way in tightened my throat to the point that I had to keep swallowing.
Breathe. One step at a time. You’re safe for the moment. What’s next?
Once I knew what I was dealing with, I’d be able to formulate more of a plan. Right now, the only plan I had was to go out and assess the situation, and try to find others who had survived the first night of the invasion.
I finished my sandwich and drank down most of a bottle of water, then I looked at the huge clock on the wall above the stove. It read 11:31. It was December, so it would be dark by 4:30.
Until then, I hoped the only threat Hank and I had to worry about were the dead.
Come sundown, we needed to find a safe hideout.
* * *
In Luka’s closet I found a pair of UGG boots that looked warm. They were size seven. My size. I found some warm winter socks in one of her drawers and gladly exchanged my hole covered ones for those. The UGGs hugged my feet and warmed them instantly.
I risked waiting another half hour until the last two deadies had wandered off in search of something more to eat. The bones of the old lady and old man had been picked pretty clean. I wondered, as I screwed up my courage to open the kitchen door, if the dead walking had been incidental in the invasion or if they really were the cleaning crew. The seemed to be taking care of the leftovers that the lizards had no use for, or hadn’t gotten at yet.
Judging by the way what used to be Jessica had reacted to the smell of my blood, I figured I fell into the latter group.
Hank was a leftover.
I was determined that we’d live another day. One day at a time, my mother had said when she was back on the wagon.
Only for us, I thought it was more like one minute at a time. If we lasted another day, I’d consider it a real achievement.
Maybe we could eventually be in the survival of the dead and alien invasion Olympics.
I snorted. The punchiness was getting to me. But then, maybe that was what would keep me going.
The remains of Mr. and Mrs. Doriga were scattered across the si
de yard. The dead, or the lizards, had made a meal of them. The Dorigas hadn’t been taken by the lizards, so they must have been too old for their liking.
Except maybe for a meal. It was hard to tell who had torn into them, the lizards or the dead. Maybe both had. I averted my eyes and let out a shaky breath. I had to keep it together.
Hank looked up at me and lifted his ears. I patted his head and kept walking across the lawn. There was no car in the driveway. “We need a car, Hank.”
Hank took off and ran toward the garage. Apparently he was used to car rides. The garage door was open, and the current model white Honda Pilot sat inside, looking pristine, like it had been recently washed.
Grandma and Grandpa had been coming for a Christmas visit, so it likely had been.
Suddenly Hank’s hackles went up and a low growl came from deep inside of his throat.
There was something in that garage.
Gripping my knife, I slowly approached the garage, wincing at the crunching snow beneath my boots.
Two of the dead were trudging around the car. A little girl with no hair turned slowly to look at me. She was thin and hallow looking, and the circles under her eyes were deep and purple. She wore a pair of pink flannel pajamas with stars and moons all over them. She wore a white sock with purple frills on one foot. The other was bare.
I’d heard of this little girl. Sidney Curtis. There had been a collection for her about a month ago. She had a brain tumor, and friends of the family had been raising money for her medical bills. Her family had mortgaged their house twice to pay for everything that she’d needed.
I recognized her mother from the pictures on the news and the website. I’d donated twenty-five dollars to her fund. The Sidney Fund.
Looking at Sidney now, I felt a mixture of horror and complete and utter sadness. I hoped that she’d died before the world had gone to hell.
Then, as she shambled toward me, growling deep in her dead throat, it occurred to me that she hadn’t vanished. She hadn’t been one of the abducted children.